Ontario Political Forum

June 6, 2014 - In the Ontario election, the Liberals and PCs are vying to present themselves as the party which can bring investment and jobs to the province. Since 1995, Ontario has suffered through Liberal and PC governments. Both governments have preached and practiced neo-liberal politics. No substantial difference exists between the two parties except quibbles over how best to implement their anti-social austerity agenda. The results of their disastrous run in power, together with the Harperites federally, are daily provided by reports that show the manufacturing base of the Ontario economy is crumbling and the living standards of the people are disintegrating. The public services on which the people rely including public education and healthcare are deteriorating, as investment funds are shifted to schemes that directly enrich the private sector especially the global monopolies. Social programs have been cut leaving the people to fend for themselves.

Both the Liberals and PCs attack the public sector and the hardworking public employees who provide the province's necessary services. Privatization of public enterprise has been a constant theme leaving government with less revenue and the people at the mercy of big companies. The Liberal government went out of its way to attack the rights of teachers and other education workers in a major assault on public education. The Hudak PCs have declared war on the public sector stating a PC government would fire 100,000 public sector workers.

Top left to bottom right: Mass rally in London at Electro Motive Diesel lockout, January 2012; protest after closure of Vertis printing in Fort Erie, January 2013; protest against permanent closure of Stelco blast furnace by U.S. Steel, November 2013; Ontario Day of Action against Cuts, April 2012; Ontario teachers' and education workers' opposition to Bill 115; Ontario Public Service workers fight to defend their wages and working conditions, March 2014.

Both parties say their goal is to help monopolies become competitive on the global market. To this end, they provide the monopolies public funds, public and social infrastructure at a fraction of its price of production and an end to government regulations or red tape as they call them.

If indeed, the policies and practices of the Liberals and PCs have made certain global monopolies competitive, they have repaid the government's largesse by asking government for yet more handouts, demanding workers claim less of the value they produce and often firing some or all of their workers, closing up shop in Ontario and moving their operations elsewhere. Making monopolies competitive has become synonymous with giving them free rein to do as they please such as stopping production in Ontario yet continuing to sell their products here, which are made elsewhere.

The Liberals and PCs do not see social problems as issues that must be solved but as ones holding importance only if they can enrich big companies through private schemes. Raw material resources are not considered crucial means to build a self- reliant all-sided economy based on manufacturing and public services. Rather, they are seen as private commodities that the big resource companies can pillage using publicly supplied infrastructure while leaving nothing behind to show for the value the workers have pulled from the ground except pollution to clean up, deserted work camps, unresolved social problems, and one- sided isolated local economies incapable of existing on their own.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The Liberals and PCs have brought Ontario an austerity economic pie and the taste is not good. Handing over the economy to the rich and their big companies is bad for the economy and people. The neo-liberal direction of the Liberals and PCs is not working and does not deserve your vote. The independent and practical politics of the working class in this election is to organize and work hard to deny the Liberals and PCs a majority government. By keeping the parties of the rich to a minority government, the working class movement can use its strength to hold the government to account. After the election, the working class movement through its independent and practical politics will continue to build momentum for a new direction for the economy that serves the people of Ontario and not the rich and their naked ambition to dominate the world.

The Ontario Economy Is Not Working